An Enchanted Place

Nikolai Gogol

2024년 5월 · The Complete Works of Gogol 20권 · Imperial Press

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The fourth story in Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka follows an old Cossack’s futile attempt to unearth treasure in a haunted field, only to reap grotesque rewards—a cauldron of debris and dung. Gogol subverts folkloric tropes, portraying greed as a literal dead end, with the enchanted place serving as a metaphor for humanity’s self-defying obsessions. The tale’s circular structure, where pursuit leads only to degradation, echoes Ecclesiastes’ nihilism, though rendered through slapstick and irony. Unlike Tolstoy’s moral parables, Gogol offers no redemptive lesson, instead framing folly as an inescapable condition. Its metaphysical irony and refusal of closure align it with later existential literature, while its earthy humor ensures the critique remains palatable, a hallmark of Gogol’s duality. "The Enchanted Place," the concluding story in Gogol's Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka collection, is a whimsical and eerie tale narrated with layers of storytelling, beginning with a sacristan and then retold by the beekeeper Rudy Panko . The central figure is the narrator's grandfather, who, while attempting to impress some salt traders with a lively hopak dance in a melon field, inexplicably finds his legs rooted to a single spot. This particular location is revealed to be an "enchanted place," an invisible boundary where the mundane world intersects with a realm influenced by unclean forces and the supernatural. Driven by the belief that treasure lies buried near this spot, marked by a flickering candle on a grave, the grandfather makes several attempts to unearth it. Each endeavor leads him into a magically disorienting landscape, where familiar landmarks appear and vanish, and his efforts are constantly thwarted by the deceptive nature of this bewitched space. On his final attempt, under the cover of darkness, the grandfather manages to dig up a pot, convinced it holds riches, but the night transforms into a terrifying phantasmagoria filled with grotesque sights and sounds. He flees, clutching the pot, only to discover upon returning home that it is empty, filled with nothing but rubbish and melon rinds. In response to his unsettling experiences, the grandfather takes measures to ward off the evil of the enchanted place, fencing it off and instructing his grandsons to place a cross on any spot deemed "uneasy". Despite these precautions, the land remains cursed, yielding strange and unidentifiable crops in the enchanted area, serving as a lasting testament to the power of the supernatural in the seemingly ordinary world. Gogol masterfully blends Ukrainian folklore, humor, and the grotesque in this tale, exploring themes of the supernatural, deception, and the limitations of human agency in the face of otherworldly forces.

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Nikolai Gogol, a pivotal figure in Russian literature, occupies a complex position due to his Ukrainian birth and heritage. Born in Ukraine, his early life and cultural background profoundly shaped his initial literary endeavors, most notably his collection of short stories, "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka". This connection to his Ukrainian roots distinguishes him within the landscape of Russian literature, and the interplay between his Ukrainian identity and his writing in Russian became a recurring subject in discussions surrounding his works. Before achieving widespread recognition, Gogol faced initial literary setbacks.